Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the rights of British Chagossians to access the trust fund and resettle on the Chagos archipelago.

On 22 May the Diego Garcia treaty was signed and laid before the House. As the Defence Secretary told the House on the day of signature, the treaty secures the strategically important UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The base is essential to the security of the UK and our key allies, and to keeping British people safe. Under the terms of the treaty, the UK will capitalise a £40 million trust fund for the benefit of Chagossians, which will be established by Mauritius.

On 12 December the Mauritian Government approved the introduction of primary legislation to establish the trust fund. The Mauritian Bill confirms the principle that the trust fund will be operated for Chagossians and by Chagossians. Decisions on the use of funds will be taken by a trust fund management board. The board will comprise 12 members, seven of whom will be Chagossians, ensuring majority representation. The chair of the trust fund will be a Chagossian, selected by the Chagossian members. Following extensive representations and engagement by this Government, the Mauritian Bill also confirms that a UK-based Chagossian representative will sit on the board, alongside representatives living in Mauritius and the Seychelles. The UK high commissioner to Mauritius will also attend board meetings. We welcome these commitments by Mauritius, which will ensure that the trust fund reflects the full spectrum of perspectives within the Chagossian community.

The treaty enables Mauritius to develop a programme of resettlement on islands other than Diego Garcia. This agreement is the only viable path to resettlement on the archipelago. The UK Government have been in talks with Mauritius to ensure that the programme is open to all Chagossians, irrespective of their country of residence. The Mauritian Government confirmed on 12 December that eligibility to resettle will apply to Chagossians born on the archipelago before 31 December 1973, and to the children of a parent who was born on the archipelago before that date.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. We have basically just heard from the Minister that the Government’s betrayal of the British Chagossian community continues. We have just had more details on how bad this deal is for the Chagossian community. Labour’s surrender of British sovereign territory means that future decisions on access to and resettlement on most of the archipelago, the ancestral home of Chagossians, are now left in the hands of—guess what?—a foreign Government.

Can the Minister confirm if British Chagossians will need to become Mauritian citizens to have any hope of being entitled to or eligible for resettlement under the future resettlement programme? That is a simple yes or no—it sounds like the answer is an absolute yes. This is a country that, until only weeks ago, had an offence on its statute books of “misrepresenting the sovereignty of Mauritius”, and it is a country from which hundreds of Chagossians have fled to Britain in recent weeks. By the way, housing this community across the country is adding to the pressure on local authorities. Does the Minister recognise the sheer madness of this plan?

The Government have confirmed that, despite this Government giving the Government of Mauritius £40 million of British taxpayers’ money for the trust fund, Britain has no proper representation on the board and no control over how the funds are spent. There will be just one UK-based Chagossian representative on the board, chosen not by the British Chagossian community, but—guess what?—by the Prime Minister of Mauritius. Can the Minister tell us if he thinks this is acceptable, and did the Government—I cannot say the Minister specifically—press for greater Chagossian and British representation on the board? Can he tell us exactly what UK delegations have been doing in Mauritius this year, who they have met and what has been discussed?

On the so-called contact group, why have the Government refused to seek the views of the British Chagossian community on this surrender treaty? They have instead chosen to outsource this vital function to a House of Lords Select Committee, whose survey, as we have seen online, has been open to manipulation by and interference from the Mauritian Government.

In the spirit of Christmas, I will not respond to allegations of betrayal. I suspect that Conservative Members will want to chunter throughout this discussion, but they might remind themselves who started these negotiations and on what basis. No doubt they will wish throughout this session to focus on transfer of sovereignty, but they might remind themselves what their negotiating position was when they were in government.

Let me turn to the questions asked by the right hon. Lady. I am pleased to inform the House that we met the Chagossian contact group on both 2 and 8 December. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who leads on these issues, has been very keen to ensure that he hears the full range of views from Chagossians in the UK. I understand, as I know Opposition Members also understand, that there is a range of views among the Chagossian community—they do not speak with one voice—and this Government are trying to listen to all of those views.

The shadow Foreign Secretary asked about the ratification of the treaty. As she knows, the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill will have its Third Reading in the House of Lords in the new year. No doubt this will be discussed further then, as it was in this House. This treaty will be scrutinised properly in the normal way, and all of these points will be surfaced.

I welcome the Minister’s clarification that the Chagossian community will be involved in the operation of the trust fund.

Turning to support in the UK for the Chagossian community, which is a significant issue, the previous Government—including Conservative Members who now sit on the Opposition Benches, pretending they have no idea where some of these issues come from—legislated in 2022 to expand the rights of Chagossians to settle here in the UK and to claim citizenship up to 2027. I represent the port authority of Hillingdon, and we are seeing a significant movement of people based on the historical rights given by the Conservatives without adequate planning. Will the Minister and his team meet me to discuss the adequacy of the support available in the UK, and how we can stop playing politics with this complex historical issue and continue to find solutions?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I will ensure he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

The Liberal Democrats have been clear from the start: nothing should be happening to the Chagossian people without the full democratic input of Chagossians themselves, who, in the custom of other overseas territories citizens, we should recognise as a self-governing and self-determining people, even if the UK has deprived Chagossians access to their homeland for more than 50 years.

Those principles, if they are to mean anything to our overseas territories family, must be both immutable and universal. In recognising that, I note that I am now joined by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which last week reported that the proposed agreement on the future of the Chagos islands should not be ratified on the grounds that it risks

“perpetuating longstanding violations of the Chagossian people’s rights.”

I am also concerned about the requirement—made, I think, explicit in the Minister’s statement yesterday—that Chagossian people will only be able to partake in the resettlement programme if, and only if, they accept Mauritian citizenship, even in circumstances where individuals and families have no historical connection, cultural or civic, to that state. Will the Minister therefore set out whether any negotiations have taken place that would have enabled Chagossians to exercise their right of return without being required to subscribe to Mauritian citizenship? Were there any discussions about a Hong Kong-style arrangement, whereby permanent residency and freedom of movement may have been granted outside of citizenship? Finally, how does the Minister reconcile last week’s UN report with his stated desire to conform with our international obligations?

In relation to the UN report, I am sure that it will be discussed on Third Reading, when the House of Lords further considers the treaty, and again in this House if that is where it returns. On the trust fund, the written ministerial statement yesterday set out the position of the Mauritian Government. There will be further discussions between the UK and Mauritius in the new year.

I call the Father of the House.

The Chagossians have been treated appallingly by successive Governments—we all accept that. To me, it is unconscionable that, for the first time since the first world war, a colonial people is being transferred from one colonial power to another 1,000 miles away with no control. I think there should be a referendum, but we are where we are. Does the Minister recognise that it would lighten the whole atmosphere if there was an absolute right of return for all Chagossians, with them not having to take Mauritian citizenship and being fully in control of their own trust fund? In other words, they have a right to self-determination like any other people on earth.

I thank my constituency neighbour for that question. The UK negotiations with the Mauritian Government have had the wishes of the Chagossian people very much at their heart. Some of the elements that I laid out in my response to the shadow Foreign Secretary are responses very much to the Chagossians themselves, including both the majority control of the board that will determine the nature of the trust fund, and the element about civil status documents and origin of birth. We will continue to talk to the Chagossian community about their wishes.

Is, in the Government’s opinion, Mauritius a free society, and what is the Government’s assessment of the nature of its relationship with communist China?

These issues have been discussed at some length. Mauritius is obviously an important partner for us. I will leave it to the relevant Minister to provide a fuller commentary about the state of its relations with China.

It is striking that the Government, despite deriding 14 years of Conservative Government, want to follow the example of the previous Government on just this matter. May I just point out that the former Foreign Secretary, the noble Lord Cameron, decided that the negotiations were not in the national interest and not in the interests of the Chagossian people, and that they should be suspended? May I recommend that the Minister follows our example on that?

I am confused whether I am or am not to follow the example of those on the Opposition Benches. My understanding was that Boris Johnson offered large quantities of money to Mauritius, absent negotiations, to try to make this all go away. That did not work. Negotiations were then opened with sovereignty at their heart. I am not sure which elements the hon. Gentleman would say I should or should not demur from. We are taking the action required to ensure the safety of the base and the security of the British people, and we are doing so closely with our partners, including the United States and Mauritius.

The Minister talks warmly of the relationship with the Chagossians. They have, of course, just formed a Government in exile. Do the British Government recognise the Chagossian Government in exile?